UF Veterinary College names development, alumni affairs director

Karen Legato has been named senior director of development and alumni affairs at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine.

Legato has 25 years of fundraising experience in higher education, nine of which have been at UF's veterinary college. She has worked with donor events, corporate solicitations and campus campaigns and was formerly the college's director of development and alumni affairs. She replaces Zoe Seale, who has become the new senior director of development and alumni affairs at UF's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Legato's promotion was effective Oct. 27.

A member of the UF veterinary college's development staff since 1999, Legato holds a bachelor's degree in communication from Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, Pa. She worked from 1984-1999 at Slippery Rock as both an executive assistant and a special events coordinator in the university's advancement office. Prior to that, she worked for seven years as a farm manager and equine trainer at Arcadian Arabians in Slippery Rock, and for nine years as the executive secretary to the president of General Nutrition Corporation in Pittsburgh.

In her most recent position at the veterinary college, in addition to fundraising for the college, Legato was responsible for cultivating relationships among several constituencies, including alumni, donors, grateful clients of UF's veterinary hospitals and others from various animal-oriented clubs and industry groups.

Most people think of development as "just fundraising" but there is more to it than that, Legato said.

"My goal is to educate people who already have an interest in the college's mission of teaching, research and patient care about ways in which their contributions can meaningfully advance that mission," Legato said. "We aren't just asking people for money; we are establishing and nurturing relationships and providing opportunities for people to give financially to a cause they already believe in."

In the nine years Legato has been at UF, the college has consistently been ranked in the top 10 of the 28 fundraising units across campus, both in terms of money raised and percentage of goal achieved.